CHERUB: Sneak Attack
by bobdat
Summary: It's time to show the eighth floor how the seventh floor does it. (A CHERUB: Knight series side story.)


**CHERUB: Knight Side Story: Sneak Attack**

The rear-wheel drive Nissan GTR skidded hopelessly through the gravel trap before hitting the track again, wiggling out of control until George put the power down and began accelerating again. He thought he'd got away with it, even snaffling the racing line for the next corner, but his lost momentum hurt and the more agile Lotus skimmed round on the outside.

"Damn it," George said through gritted teeth as he concentrated hard. The Lotus was nimble but lacked power, so on the next straight he managed to enact a small comeback, gaining ground until he was right up behind his opponent.

"Oh no you don't," Rex said, deftly tapping the brake and pulling into the next corner. George was going too fast and had to slam on the brakes, taking the corner slow and wide, giving Rex even more of an advantage. By the time George was round the corner, Rex was opening up a comfortable lead and George knew it was futile to try and catch him.

"Forget it," he said, dropping the controller. "These games are always rigged anyway."

Rex said nothing, just chalking up another win in his column t0 make it 53-48 this month. Loser had to read out a grovelling apology in the cafeteria in front of everyone; not a happy prospect.

"You know, you don't have to agree to play if you don't want to," Rex said in a smug voice. "You'll lose the championship, but still, it's slightly less embarrassing."

"You're what, five wins ahead and you're already gloating? You won't be laughing when I get back ahead," George replied, trying not to sound like a sore loser.

"Can you two stop whining at each other? You're like babies," Letty said while Jemima just tutted.

"Well if you've got any better ideas of how to pass the time, I'm all ears," George replied irritably, but he was on a losing streak and welcomed the interruption. Annoying as they could be, the girls were good fun and always wound Rex up, which was a bonus.

"I'd just like Michael to hurry up, we've been sitting here for ninety minutes now," Jemima said, idly playing with the settings on her phone.

George opened his mouth to make a response, but before he could say anything, someone knocked on the door. It was two knocks, a pause, then a third, and George scrambled to find the bit of paper with the secret knocks written on it.

"Two, pause, one… apparently that means 'all clear for movement'," George said. "Finally our turn."

Being at the end of the corridor furthest from the lift, their four rooms were the last to receive the night's briefing and so had to wait the longest. When George opened the door and looked out, whoever had done the knocking was nowhere to be seen, but their instructions were to proceed to Michael's room once they'd been given the all clear.

"Take a seat," Michael said casually, motioning towards his two-seater sofa as the four agents filed in. He was dressed all in black, complete with gloves and a balaclava, but he had a blue military-style cap which marked him as the leader, and, inexplicably, was wearing a white rubber ring in the shape of a duck around his waist. There was a guard permanently posted outside the room, and on the rota at the moment was George's friend from basic training, Ralph. He gave them a slight wave before shutting the door behind him and returning to his guard duty.

Michael's bedroom looked like normal, but as soon as there had been a squabble about who got to sit on the sofa (George had been pushed over the arm and had to sit on the floor while the other three squeezed onto two cushions), he unrolled a detailed plan of the eighth floor of the accommodation block, annotated in colour, which covered most of the unusually-tidy floor.

"The time is now eleven minutes past two in the morning, which is precisely nineteen minutes before H-hour," Michael said seriously, using a length of wood to point to the plan. "You four, designated as Group 9, will do the following as soon as H-hour occurs. You will proceed directly, I repeat, directly to this point-" he indicated the stairwell with his stick, "-and receive your ammunition. Then you will ascend the stairs, and take up your positions here and here, two of you at each position. At H-hour plus two minutes, the alarm will sound, and you are expected to direct your fire to these three targets only, unless you come under direct attack from other locations. The room here-" he pointed to the endmost room, "-is vacant currently so you shouldn't have to worry about it. Once your ammunition is spent, retreat in a disorderly fashion to the sixth floor, from which point you are on your own. Any questions? Of course not, now you may return to your room."

George was trying not to laugh at Michael's over-the-top attitude, especially since the duck wobbled whenever he said anything. "Nice duck," he said in a cheeky tone, giving a mock salute. They got up and headed for the door, but they stopped when a knock sounded; three in succession.

"Lockdown," Michael said urgently. "Don't make any moves."

They waited, not sure whether to be amused or anxious, until Ralph quietly slipped into the room.

"It's two eight-floor agents, heading downstairs," Ralph said in a hushed voice. "I couldn't get a positive ID."

"Wait for the report," Michael said, no sooner saying it when his phone vibrated. He snatched it up and read the text message. "Our eyes downstairs have IDed them. Looks like two fewer rooms to worry about, but then we'll need an extra man covering the rear. Any idea what they were doing?"

Ralph shook his head. "But given the time, I'd guess they're headed to get food or something. They sounded relaxed."

"Good guess. It's safer to give them ten minutes rather than change the plans at this late stage."

Once everything was clear again and the pair of agents were safely upstairs again, George and the others headed down the corridor back to his room again. There was more of an air of excitement now than after the long waiting period, and George couldn't wait to get started. As soon as they were back in the safety of his room, he let out a laugh.

"Michael is taking this seriously, right?" Letty asked, sounding concerned.

"It's just how he is. He loves being ridiculous," George replied. "He'd have loved to have been a prisoner of war or something."

"Still, I'm glad he's on our side, not theirs," Rex remarked. "He can probably take on six people and win."

"Our job is fairly easy, plus it's harder to spot us in the dark," Jemima pointed out. "We might even get away without too much damage."

"It's more fun if you're in the thick of the action," George said, but there were some black shirts on the eighth floor whom he wasn't exactly eager to be tangling with.

"How long have we got?" Rex asked.

"Only four minutes after that delay," Letty said. "Better leave all our stuff here."

It was risky to take any personal possessions with you, so George left his phone and watch behind. He'd drawn the short straw, though; the others could lock their room keys in his room, hidden and safe, whereas he'd have to carry his with him and risk capture, followed by a thorough ransacking of his room. He watched enviously as Rex, Letty and Jemima all hid their room keys under the carpet behind his sink.

"Alright, twenty seconds, let's get going," he said. Their outfits were all-black too, and in the corridors outside they'd be hard to identify in the low light. At the exact moment designated H-hour, he heard the simultaneous noise of door handles being opened and followed suit, stepping outside as other black figures also appeared in the corridor. The other three headed for the stairs while he paused to lock his room and tuck his key deep into his sock.

At the foot of the stairs leading to the top floor was Michael, corralling everyone and making sure there were no interruptions or last-minute changes to the plan, and a navy shirt George vaguely recognised, who was handing out balloons filled with water or paper envelopes of flour. Michael himself was sporting a high-powered water gun and winked at George as he picked up six flour bombs.

"Take care up there. Remember; they won't hesitate to torture you," Michael whispered, patting George on the shoulder before following him up the stairs to assume a rearguard position. George trotted along the corridor a few yards to his allotted spot; he was furthest from the stairs on the seventh floor, so his targets were the closest on the eighth. He stood back-to-back with Rex, each covering one door, trying not to breathe as someone down the corridor did one last check, gave them a thumbs-up, and pressed the 'play' button on a battered-looking boombox. There were no lights on in the room George was covering, but he kept two bombs in his hand in readiness and didn't let his gaze leave the door handle.

Suddenly, destroying the near-silence and giving practically everyone a heart attack, the boombox burst into life with a warped rendition of the theme tune from _The Powerpuff Girls_. It took a few seconds for there to be any reaction, but someone down the corridor roared "Turn it off!" and moments later, doors started to open.

It took a lot of will for George not to look round at the mayhem breaking out, but a light flicked on in his target room as the boombox continued pumping out tinny music. He felt Rex move behind him, and then the door in front of him opened, revealing a girl who looked to be about fourteen or fifteen with a bird's nest of hair and too-small _Hello Kitty_ pyjamas on.

"What the hell is-" she started, looking confused, but George launched first. One flour bomb missed hopelessly, but sailed past her and exploded somewhere in her room. She had no time to react before George attacked again, this one hitting just below her neck and exploding in an extremely satisfying way, covering her face and arms with flour. George let out a laugh, but she made a grab for him and he had to twist away. He managed to launch another bomb through her open doorway before heading back to the stairs. Their eighth-floor targets were easy to identify as the only ones not wearing black, so George took the opportunity to launch his fourth bomb full pelt into the back of someone in a white t-shirt. Something flew past his face, missing by inches, but it was too dark to make anything out. As he ducked into the stairwell, someone following him was blasted in the face by Michael, wielding his water gun in a combat pose.

"Head for the sixth," Michael said, giving George a shove towards the stairs just as someone else screamed "Sixth floor rules!" The plan seemed to be working, but someone from the eighth floor was quick off the mark.

"They're from the seventh, not the sixth," the person bellowed. "Let's wreck the seventh floor!"

George took the stairs two at a time, not sure whether to follow Michael's orders or protect his room. The fact that the key to his room was unprotected swayed him, and instead of going all the way down to the sixth he bailed at the seventh, joining a small group of others who were gathered around the stairway ready to defend.

"Get a some of these," someone said to George, passing him a plastic tub full of water balloons. George nodded gratefully and grabbed the tub, barely having time to think before floury, wet eighth floor agents started barreling down the stairs at full-pelt. He launched a water balloon and missed, but his follow-up shot with a flour bomb hit someone and covered the wall in flour. Most of their opponents were fooled and were heading down to the sixth floor, but a few wiser heads were forcing their way through onto the seventh, fighting back with stolen ammunition. George was bundled aside and blindly launched his final flour bomb, receiving a water bomb to the chest in retaliation. He dropped to the floor and rolled, trying to get away from whoever was there. It worked, and when he sprang up, he had an easy shot with a water balloon, hitting a kid in the back of the head and getting splash damage to at least three others. He was an isolated target, though, and three projectiles came his way, one water balloon hitting his arm and spraying up to the side of his face. Their defence of the seventh floor was crumbling as more and more people realised that the sixth floor wasn't involved, and George guessed they were outnumbered two to one. The final straw was when, as he ducked to avoid a fast-moving flour bomb, the lift chimed and the doors opened to reveal a pack of eighth-floor Cherubs carrying buckets of water.

Now fearing for his life, George made a snap decision and retreated along the corridor, trapped. Every room on the seventh floor was locked, so the only targets were people, which meant that George found himself backing towards his own bedroom door with three older and stronger-looking agents advancing on him with two buckets of water.

"Let's talk about this," he tried, not expecting it to work, but the others did stop for a second. It became obvious, though, that the reason was because the girl George had earlier pelted with flour had arrived and wanted some personal revenge. They handed her a bucket and headed back down the corridor, looking for more victims. George sized up his opponent and reckoned he stood a slim chance, but her friend arrived with flour stuck to her glasses and he knew he was doomed.

To his credit, he put up a fight for a few spirited minutes and landed a few hits with water balloons, but he got more than he gave and within five he found himself being carried by the arms and legs down seven flights of stairs, dripping wet with a bucket taped over his head. The bucket meant he could see nothing but black, and he estimated where they were based on his memory of campus. The girls seemed to get past the sixth floor, where battles still seemed to be raging, without any incident, and carried him out of the main door without bumping into any curious staff members. George was sure that they must have heard the racket going on in the accommodation block, especially since some of them lived on the fourth and fifth floors, but it was Saturday night and maybe they were all out drinking. Or maybe they just didn't care.

The girls finally stopped, complaining about how heavy he was, and George tried to work out where they were. They had to be somewhere near the main gate, but at this time of night it would be locked, so unless they were planning to break them open by force, there was nowhere to go.

As they started swinging him, he realised he'd been an idiot. There was one huge thing outside the accommodation block he'd forgotten about. He stuck out his arms and flailed as they threw him into the campus fountain, but it didn't stop him from landing in the icy-cold water and hitting the concrete bottom painfully. At least the fountain's mechanism wasn't working at this time in the morning, and now his arms were free he could rip off the tape and finally pull the bucket off his head, taking deep breaths of fresh air which didn't smell like cleaning agent.

"Cows!" he shouted after the girls, who were both headed back into the block, but they didn't seem to hear him. A passing couple, returning from a late-night session in the gym, laughed at him, but he just ignored them and concentrated on climbing out and planning his next move. The nearest hot showers were in the dojo, and there would be clean sparring uniforms there to change into.

"Gooooooood morning Vietnam!" Michael yelled, bursting into George's room at the crack of dawn. "How're you feeling? Tired?"

George sat up in bed, blearily aware that Michael was in his doorway. "Can't you leave me alone for, say, four more hours?" he mumbled. He was vaguely aware that he'd bolted his door shut, but he spotted the bolt, complete with screws, wrenched out of the wall and just ground his palm into his face.

Michael sat down on the bed heavily, causing George to bounce upwards. "You mean to say you didn't have the time of your life last night?"

George slid back under his duvet. "Getting chucked into the fountain is not exactly my idea of fun. Did get the flour off me, though."

The black-shirt roared with laughter. "Well at least it's creative. And you don't seem like it caused you much harm."

"I've got bruises all up my arm from landing on the bottom," George complained, trying to cover his head with the pillow. "Now go away and let me sleep. I don't even know what you're awake. Last night I thought I saw you getting pelted."

"Can't keep a good man down! We surprised ten of them having a _Futurama_ marathon, the carnage was glorious," Michael said excitedly, jumping up and thumping George painfully on his injured arm. "Anyway, are you coming out for a kickabout later? We were gonna start around three."

George opened one eye to check his alarm clock. "I'll be awake by then, count me in. Mind you, I'll have eaten a decent Sunday dinner so I can't guarantee I'll be running very fast."


End file.
